Published

Weekly wrap-up, 21 August

Photo of the week!
The idea was nice, I fairly often take photos – most often with my phone, but I’ll often find myself wondering around with various cameras.

Sadly, when I looked through this week’s photos there wasn’t really anything relevant. The best I could manage was a fairy cake and a cup of tea. Although it was a very nice fairy cake and cup of tea. You might have to get used to it, because despite my failure this week I’ve decided to continue trying to use a photo in this post… and if I haven’t got a good one. This is what you’ll be seeing.

The police, crime and community safety
I’ve spent quite a lot of time on various community safety issues this week. Unfortunately, they don’t make for good blogging because some elements are confidential, some still not ready for public consumption and some, quite frankly, just a bit dull. Necessary, but dull.

However, it’s still a major concern that crime is still up compared to last year. To some degree it was inevitable, crime was incredibly low in Wandsworth last year, but the entire country is seeing an increase in crime rates. Its effect is felt most notably in burglary, and particularly along the Lambeth border (which makes me think I need to look into adapting the crime maps with some boundaries).

While the police and council are doing all they can to fight this, it remains the case that the best way of beating burglars is to prevent it happening in the first place. Make sure your home is secure and doors and windows aren’t left open unattended and, if you don’t already have one, consider starting a Neighbourhood Watch.

Chugging
How can I not mention chugging?

I really didn’t realise how this would take off. And I certainly didn’t realise the strength of public opinion. Chuggers are not popular people.

I posted about it last week, having mulled the issue over for a week or so. The council also issued a press release, and from there it exploded. It’s been covered by quite a few papers, BBC online and I’ve managed a few radio appearances as a result. Natually, I’m arrogant enough to link to them…

Related

There was a fairly lengthy exchange in these comments which I have just removed. It looks like someone might have been setting up multiple email accounts to defend chugging. While I’ve no issue with pro-chugging comments on here, and am happy to have a discussion, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect some transparency so have temporarily removed them unless and until I can establish they are genuine.